Lake Orion High School student, Olivia Spolyar, dies in car crash

orion twp. >> One of the last posts on her Twitter account reads, “I love my parents.” It’s dated Nov. 10, the day before Olivia Spolyar died in a two-vehicle accident.

Pixley Funeral Home in Auburn Hills is handling the services for Spolyar, 17, a senior at Lake Orion High School, who died Monday night in Brandon Township, following a two-car crash that sent five people to area hospitals.

“If you knew her you would be impressed,” said her father, David Spolyar. “She was very gifted with her photography. It was her passion. She was really looking forward to going to college and moving on.”

When she was 11 years old, Olivia Spolyar was already interested in music and became involved bringing one of her favorite bands to the area for a concert. That’s how she became involved in the music business and landed a gig taking pictures for a blogging website called Buzznet.com. As a teenager, she took pictures at numerous concerts from the photo pit at venues such as The Palace of Auburn Hills and DTE Energy Music Theatre of bands including Fall Out Boy.

“She learned the camera inside and out,” he said. “You’d look at something, and she’d take the picture from a different view. She’d just capture it. She had the eye for doing it.”

A Lake Orion native, Spolyar was riding in a 2006 Chevrolet Impala with a friend Monday night on Seymour Lake Road, west of Sashabaw Road. At 8 p.m., the car hit a patch of ice and spun across the center line, striking a 2000 Ford Focus. The driver of the Impala, an 18-year-old Ortonville resident, has been released from Genesys Hospital, but the three occupants of the Ford Focus - also teenagers - remain hospitalized with what are considered non-life threatening injuries, according to an update from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office released Wednesday. Alcohol does not appear to be a factor in the crash, although it remains under investigation.

As a child, Spolyar participated in youth softball and soccer. In addition, she was involved in school activities such as People to People Student Ambassador - Europe 2011, The LEAGUE Michigan, National Honor Society, National Art Honor Society and Academic Service Learning. She earned arts and photography awards including Gold and Silver Key Awards, Buzzi Award for Journalism and Photography and Best Concert Photography.

Spolyar planned to attend college next year and had applied to Pratt University and Parsons School of Art in New York, Art Center College in Pasadena, Calif. and College for Creative Students in Detroit. She even took a College for Creative Studies Pre-College Summer Experience course as well as classes at Oakland Technical Center and Kendall College.

“She accomplished a lot in a very short time,” said her mother, Jo Ellen Spolyar. “She really enjoyed art and doing art. It really became her passion, doing different things and different techniques. She was hungry for it.”

Spolyar owned about 50 cameras and liked learning ways to develop pictures, even with film, she said. She visited art schools in New York City recently and had been to Europe.

Besides her parents, she is survived by her sister, Sophia Spolyar, her brother, Sonny Spolyar and her grandparents, Donald and M.J. Spolyar of Cadillac. She was preceded in death by her grandparents, Larry and Marguerite Cochrane and Evelyn Spolyar.

Visitation will take place from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at Pixley Funeral Home at 3530 Auburn Road in Auburn Hills. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Friday at the First Baptist Church at 255 E. Scripps Road in Lake Orion followed by a burial at Fairview Cemetery in Manton.

Lake Orion Schools released a statement Wednesday saying, “Our high school students and staff, as well as other people who knew Olivia in the district, were shocked and deeply saddened by the news of her death. She will be missed by many. School counselors are working with those who are struggling with the tragic accident. Our thoughts are with her family.”

And a friend, Sean Monaghan, 18, of Livonia, said, “She was great; she really was. I think one of the things I liked the most about her was just how smart she was - beyond her years. She would think and act like an adult when she was 15 and 16 years old. I always really admired that about her. She was friendly and bubbly.”

Some of the pictures on Spolyar’s Facebook page show her with her camera; goofy expressions on her face; a teenager having fun.